richards

Ok, what is it about this snapshot that is distinct from so many others? Yes, the endearing vintage look is appealing as is the interesting unfolding of the ‘dance’ event. But it’s really just some guy sweeping up in a hardware store. —- that’s exactly right - it’s not a kissing couple on a foggy Parisian boulevard or a busy street corner in New York. You really don’t need a professional master photographer to create beauty. —— the hues are fabulous in this indoor flashbulb that exposure. The two gestures are so wonderfully choreographed. And most of all it’s the solid structure of the picture. Look at the harmonious diagonal lines created by his leg, broom stick, bar edge, her leg. And how everything fits into where it should be so casually. Nice photo

Thank you for the kind comments! Mary Lloyd Johnson carried her camera everywhere, capturing local events and people. She has captured our local history like no other person.

Sheila and Cheryl are Hawley sisters and the little girl in the blue dress is their little sister Joanne Hawley Neal. Beccie Snider is Cheryl’s daughter and would be a generation later than this photo.

1st Lt. John Francisco Richards II (b. July 31, 1896 - d. September 26, 1918) See: KC pilot’s diary is a window on World War I air battle over France by Darryl W. Levings The Kansas City Star - Star Magazine February 6, 2016 Their machines were made of wood, wire and doped fabric, powered by appallingly unreliable engines. With no parachutes, the young pilots would debate philosophically whether it was better to jump from 2,000 feet or stay in their burning cockpits to the end. Among them was a son of Kansas City — 1st Lt. John Francisco Richards II — who, on the afternoon of Sept. 26, 1918, was at the stick of a patched-up, nose-heavy French Salmson 2A2 biplane. That was the opening day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, a battle that led to the Armistice 47 days later. The mission of Richards and his observer in the second seat was to spot German guns in the Varennes area and direct U.S. artillery fire on them. Richards and 2nd Lt. Austin Hanscom did not return to their muddy airdrome near Remicourt that day and were initally listed as missing. Crews searched hospitals and flew over the exploding forested terrain to find them, even dropping notes to the enemy inquiring about the fate of a friend called “Dickie.” It wasn’t clear until about a month later that Richards had stayed with his machine all the way down. “Most interesting, heroic and pathetic” had been the 22-year-old officer’s journal observation about the grave-strewn and shattered French countryside. The words fit his own story well. For much of his life, Richards kept this daily accounting. “Writing seems to have been one of his greatest pleasures, no matter what the conditions were as to time or place,” said his father, George Richards, in the foreword of “War Diary and Letters of John F. Richards,” published in 1925. Richards loved flying. “It is the most wonderful sensation and I can see that I shall never give it up. Sixty miles an hour up there is like about fifteen on the ground,” he exulted in a diary entry. Now, amid the 100th anniversary of the Great War, this young officer’s forgotten story reopens a window on the air war over France. Though it was a world away from the terrible trenches, death was just as imminent. To repeat all the entries would, well, take a book. This story picks among the pieces to put together a sense of this convivial and purposeful young man. . . . *** SEE COMPLETE STORY LINKED AT TITLE *** See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francisco_Richards_II